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R Strauss - Ein Heldenleben, Rosenkavalier Suite

£12.69

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Label: Orfeo

Cat No: C803091

Barcode: 4011790803128

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Orchestral

Release Date: 11th January 2010

Works

Strauss, Richard

Der Rosenkavalier: Suite
Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), op.40

Artists

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Andris Nelsons

Works

Strauss, Richard

Der Rosenkavalier: Suite
Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life), op.40

Artists

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Conductor

Andris Nelsons

About

What Ein Heldenleben needs is not only a first-class orchestra but also a conductor with a clear sense of the work's underlying structure, a conductor, moreover, who is able to maintain the tension and respond quickly and consistently to the work's countless details. This is certainly how Andris Nelsons sees his task, a task that he realises magnificently in this, his second Orfeo recording with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

The orchestra and its music director allow the orchestral colours to gleam and ensure that the individual sections that make up the score flow smoothly, sweeping the listener along with them. This reading of Ein Heldenleben has such stringency and rigour that many of the aesthetic objections to the work merely add to our pleasure at individual details, while never calling into question the piece's overall design.

The fact that Nelsons is also a master of the art of transition in the music theatre and can achieve this on the concert platform, too, is clear from his recording of the Suite from Der Rosenkavalier, which under Nelsons' direction becomes spontaneously compelling and coherent, and which the CBSO clearly take pleasure in.

Stephen Maddock, the CBSO's chief executive says: "At a time when record labels are reducing their commitment to the core symphonic repertoire, we're delighted to have found in Orfeo a partner who is showing this level of commitment to Andris and the CBSO. In this way we can bring what we are sure will be outstanding accounts of composers who are very close to Andris's heart - and who have mostly not featured until now in the CBSO's large discography - to the widest possible international audience."